Gut Kaden Golf Club

Gut Kaden Golf Club: Players Championship Of Europe Course For 2008

Gut Kaden Golf Club is located in Alveslohe, just outside Hamburg, Germany. Since 1995, it has been host to the Deutsche Bank Players Championship Of Europe a total of nine of the 13 times that the tournament has been played. For 2008, it will again see some of the European Tour’s top players go head to head, for a total prize fund in excess of €3.6 million!

The Gut Kaden club includes 27 holes, playable in combinations A, B and C. The championship course for the Deutsche Bank Players Championship Of Europe is the C, B combination, providing a par-72 course at a total of 7,117 yards. The club has converted the old buildings of the former manor that occupied the land into a clubhouse.

The Gut Kaden course was designed by Frank Penninck and opened in 1984. In 1991, it underwent significant reconstruction by Karl F Grohs and his landscape architecture firm, to bring it up to European Tour standards.

Gut Kaden Scorecard

The Gut Kaden course is set amid lush parkland, with water coming into play on several holes.Of the front nine, holes C8 and C9 are the most challenging. To land the par-4 C8, players have to make it over water from the tee, and then miss the water again to get a shot onto the green, which is surrounded by mounds. C9 requires a shot of around 270 metres for a comfortable wedge distance onto the island green, and is a signature hole for the Gut Kaden course.A good spot for spectators on the front nine is hole C5, which provides a good view of the uphill holes (C3 and C4) and the downhill hole (C6) on either side of it.

Of the back nine, water comes into play for a total of four holes (B2, B3, B4 and B5), with creeks and lakes making for interesting play. The par-4, 319-metre B4 is a challenge even for pros, with a fairway that bottlenecks and that includes bunkers on either side, and with a green guarded by a creek and yet another bunker. Because the fairway is lower than the green, you can’t see that the green undulates until you get there!

The final hole on the Players Championship course is a 404-metre, par-4 dogleg, played downhill through a corridor of trees. Players will need to hit their tee shots over the left trees and past the dogleg bunkers – a distance of about 270 metres.

Who do you think will take the prize at Gut Kaden for 2008?